


Put your helmet on

by HogwartsToAlexandria



Series: Marie's Stony Shorts 2019 [18]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Depression, Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, M/M, THE AUTHOR IS SAD OKAY, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Virtual Reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 11:41:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19790149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HogwartsToAlexandria/pseuds/HogwartsToAlexandria
Summary: ENDGAME COMPLIANTAfter Tony's dead, Steve loses himself in the memories he found saved in Friday's hard drives.Stony Bingo 2019 Fill, O5: "Virtual Reality"Iron Man Bingo 2019 Fill, S1: "Steve Rogers"Hurt/Comfort Bingo 2019 Fill, G4: "Depression"





	Put your helmet on

**Author's Note:**

> My first and probably one of my very rare endgame compliant fics (I prefer the sweet nothingness of denial).  
> Hope you'll like it, Steve needs all the hugs in this.

The helmet sits where it always sits when Steve isn't wearing it nowadays - in an average two feet range from his reach. 

It's not healthy and it's certainly not helping him at all and yet, he feels like it is. He feels like it's the only thing that allows him to breathe and walk and function as closely to a normal human as he's ever going to get anymore. Which is not really close. But who cares?

Well, everyone but him. For sure. 

He's holding onto that helmet, barely refraining from sleeping with his arms around it or showering with it. He's holding onto it like a lifeline - where outsiders would probably call it something different, ghostly, morbidly, calling and pulling him further from life, nearer to death. 

It doesn't matter. There's nothing left for him in this life to enjoy or even pay attention to. There's nothing left but the Iron Man helmet and its blue eyes that allow Steve to see what isn't there anymore, what is forever gone. 

He wears it like he wears his heart, with trembling hands and throbbing lungs. 

Steve wears the helmet day and night unless he actually remembers to eat or sleep. He wears it for hours and days on end and no one can get him out of it. Certainly not Tony. 

The helmet is the last tie Steve has to his late husband and the memories he's stored into Friday's database. They're more than a safe haven at this point, they're Steve's home; the only place he gets to stare into his husband's eyes anymore. 

Tony's eyes which he's seen void of all spirit and sparkle when life oozed out of him; when he'd made the ultimate sacrifice. Trust him to make it so final and dramatic. 

Steve can't laugh anymore, nor can he smile. Unless it's from the memories he sees and loses himself in. 

He's long since disabled Friday's worried voice to intervene while he's down in the memory palace, as he's taken to thinking about it - when he allows himself to think at all that is. 

All she can do anymore is help him sort through all the items saved in her hard drives and select each and everyone of the images that now compose Steve's whole life. 

He's never been one for coding so he'd had to ask her to modify her own commands soon after Tony passed - so she'd please stop calling Steve " _ Mr Stark _ ". He can't hear this and not crumble anymore, let alone let it be an address for his own person. 

Tony's dead and Steve is but the shadow of who he once was, stripped of everything good that life had given him.

The memories come and go, hundreds of them, maybe even thousands, Steve isn't sure and isn't about to ask. He's not even sure if he'd notice if he were to watch the same fragments of their lives day after day with no variety. It doesn't matter. 

What matters is the sound of Tony's laugh, the notes of his voice and the wave of his breathing that resonate in the confines of the helmet and further into Steve's mind and rib cage alike. That's what matters. The vibrancy of Tony's smile and of the ghost-memory of his touch on Steve's skin. 

There's nothing else for Steve to hold onto but this ray of the past, kaleidoscope of their lives together, a mesh of words and promises sealed in rings and gazes lost in one another. This game of hide-and-seek between the light that used to shine in Tony's eyes and the darkness that's now Steve's daily ordeal. 

There's nothing but despair and escape. 

Steve is a runaway thief, flying away from his own beating heart to let himself sleep and die in the arms of the only person who's ever been able to make it all matter, to make stepping into the world worth the hassle and the ache. His own bed feels like a coffin, cold and empty even when he's in it. 

His own mind feels like a vault from which he's been locked out of. 

There's nothing but his heart bleeding steadily in the crook of his palms that cup but do not cauterize. 

He died the moment air stopped oxygenating Tony's heart and warmth. 

He died the moment they won and he lost everything. 

The endgame wasn't one that allowed Steve to find his reckoning. 

The endgame was one Steve's eyelids closed for barely a second and yet felt like never opening again. Glassy-eyed and empty inside. Worthy but desolate. Dusted.

**Author's Note:**

> More happy stories to come soon!
> 
> Also, find me on [Tumblr](https://hogwartstoalexandria.tumblr.com/)


End file.
